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Current General Studies Magazine: "Transport" March + April 2015

Current General Studies Magazine (March + April 2015)

General Studies - I: Social Issue Based Article (Transport)

With traffic bottleneck and traffic congestion, almost all cities and towns of India are suffering from acute form of transport problem. Transport problems increase and become more complex as the town grows in size. With its growth, the town performs varied and complex functions and more people travel to work or shop. As the town becomes larger, even people living within the built-up area have to travel by car or bus to cross the town and outsiders naturally bring their cars or travel by public transport. Wherever, trade is important, commercial vehicles such as vans and trucks will make problem of traffic more complicated.

Since most of the commercial activities of the towns are concentrated in the Central Business District (C.B.D.), the centres are areas of greatest congestion. However, other parts of the town are not free from traffic congestion. Such areas include the roads leading to factories, offices, schools, etc., which will be thronged with people in morning and evening; minor shopping centres which grow up in the suburbs; sporting arenas, entertainment districts which will be busy at night, roads leading to residential and dormitory towns which will be busy when commuters flock to the cities in the morning to work and return home in the evenings. Such congestion becomes greater when the centre is built up in tall skyscraper blocks whose offices sometimes employ thousands of workers, because at the end of the office hours everyone leaves the building within a short space of time to make their way home. This puts tremendous pressure on public transport and causes journeys to take much longer period than they normally would. In most cities the rush hour or peak traffic hour lasts for about two hours and during that period buses and trains are crammed to capacity, roads are overcrowded with vehicles and the movement of traffic becomes very slow.

In other towns, the narrowness of the streets, which were built long before the motorised transport and lack of parking facilities are the main cause of congestion. Cars may be parked along the edges of the roads restricting movement to a narrow lane and the multiplicity of narrow streets, sharp corners and waits to turn into lanes of traffic may slow down the movement and thus create even greater congestion. The traffic scenario in almost all the Indian cities presents a pathetic picture with Mumbai still having the best city transport system and Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune being reasonably well served by local transport system. In all other cities, if one does not own a personal vehicle, great hardship is experienced in moving about in the city. Apart from that, the level of incomes and affordability of Indian masses is very low and the citizens are not able to pay an economic fare for use of public transport system. Therefore, all city bus services sustain such heavy losses that they cannot really expand or even maintain a fleet adequately to meet the city needs. Moreover, mixture of vehicles causes uncontrollable chaos on the roads. Free movement of stray cattle and domestic animals on the roads adds to traffic problem and often cause accidents. Heavy traffic and congestion leads to slow movement of traffic, fuel wastage environmental pollution and loss of precious time.

A study of traffic problem in Delhi will acquaint us to traffic scenario in the rest of urban India. Already there are 44 lakh vehicles on Delhi roads (in 2004) which will almost double by 2021 when the next Master Plan will be implemented. The road length, however, has not increased proportionately. The road length per vehicle was 3 km in 1971 which reduced to 2 km in 1981,1.3 km in 1991, 0.68 km in 1998 and 0.23 km in 2004. Figure 14.7 depicts different aspects of transport infrastructure in Delhi. Urban planners say that by 2021, going in a car will take, longer time than walking. The guidelines for Delhi Master Plan 2021, allowing mixed land use, multi-storeyed structures and regularisation of 24 industrial estates will add to the city’s already congested roads. Disturbing trends have also been indicated in the Status Report for Delhi, 2021 prepared by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. Planning Department of Delhi Government also States that despite roads occupying 21 per cent of the total area of the city, the increase of traffic on arterial roads is resulting in lower speeds, congestion, intersection delays and higher pollution level during peak hours. Some relief is expected with the completion of metro rail. But experts fear that by the time the metro rail becomes fully operational, the demand for transport facilities will outpace the capacity of both road and rail transport.

Similar conditions prevail in most of the Indian cities. In Kolkata, metro rail and Vivekanand Setu were constructed to ease traffic flow. But traffic congestion in several old localities and near Haora bridge is almost a daily routine. In Ahmedabad, the speed of vehicles come down to 5 km/hr on Gandhi Marg and several other roads due to congestion and overcrowding.